The Fires of Spring by James A. Michener
David was appalled by the Gonoph’s incapacity to see herself as she was. He did an ugly thing and asked, “Why did Cyril take those two speeches from you and give them to the telephone?”
Instead of being humiliated by this question the Gonoph smiled complacently and resumed her whispered confidences, leaning upon David. “Don’t you get it?” she asked. “Miss Meigs is very jealous of me. She knows I used to be where she is now. I’m sure it was her idea, David. I can just hear her pestering Mr. Hargreaves at night, bargaining with him. I guess in the end he just had to give in. After all, I know him well enough to understand that he’d do anything to protect his regular summer loving.”
She punched David knowingly in the ribs and gave a superior, condescending smile. “But don’t put me down as being bitchy!” she protested. “I’m probably the last woman in the world jealous of Miss Meigs. After all, when I knew Mr. Hargreaves he had his own teeth!”
Day after day she came to the tent with her murky rationalizations, and, disgusting as she was, David found her a source of warm and continued interest. For she spoke, unknowingly, of the vast lands that comprise America. Names fell from her fat lips that were music to David’s ear: “We were playing in Sioux City.” “Miss Barrymore said that the entire city of Denver …” “It was on a rainy night in Great Falls.”
“Did you ever play in Texas?” David asked.
“Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth and El Paso,” the dumpy woman recited.
“What were they like?” he asked.
“Hot,” she said.
But the litany went on! Kansas City, Albuquerque, Reno, Aberdeen, Memphis, Baton Rouge, Columbia. The Gonoph could characterize any city in the country in a single word. San Francisco was hilly. New Orleans was Frenchified. And Omaha was railroads. There were no people in these distant cities, and no meaning in their lives. But even the names of the cities were beautiful to David.
“What city … Now consider them all!” he said. “What one did you like best?”
“Providence, Rhode Island,” she said immediately.
“Why?” he asked.
“I was born there,” she replied. “And Father stopped drinking for a while.”
David found only one subject on which the Gonoph could discourse intelligently. Love had an endless fascination for her. She would sit on the marionette boxes and talk for hours about friends of hers who had fallen in love under strange circumstances. She called it “finding their hearts’ desire,” which was a line from a play she had known years ago.
“Well, there was this girl I was telling you about,” she said one night. “We were playing together in something.” She never remembered the names of plays. “We had a Saturday date in Pueblo, Colorado. Some friends stopped by to drive us down to Albuquerque. The young man who drove this girl’s car was real nice. They stopped off in Santa Fe. My car drove right on through. Well, when her car got to Albuquerque she had found her heart’s desire.”
“They get married?” David asked.
“Sure they got married!” the Gonoph replied angrily. “She had her heart’s desire, didn’t she? I get Christmas cards from her! She’s got three kids!” She tucked in her blouse with violent little stabs. “Of course they got marriedl What do you think?”
“Didn’t you ever find your heart’s desire?” David asked quietly.
“No!” she said abruptly. She ruffled the pages of the book she was carrying. “It’s like Proust says. Sometimes you never find your heart’s desire.”
“Proust?” David asked. “Do you read Proust?”
The Gonoph, who was used to startled looks when she mentioned the name of the great French novelist, smiled weakly and replied, “Oh, yes! I like his work very much. He seems to have more depth than most modern writers.”
David stopped what he was doing and looked at this amazing woman. He had once tried to plow through Proust’s involved sentences and had given up; and now here was this disorganized, frowsy woman reading the man with pleasure.
“What do you suppose the Wild Man does with his pigeons?” she asked, returning to topic number one.
“That’s his business,” David replied.
“I’d like to know!” the Gonoph mumbled. “I’ve found it a safe rule that whenever there’s a boy and a girl together, there’s apt to be trouble.”
“That’s the Wild Man’s affair,” David insisted.
“How about your little dwarf?” the Gonoph persisted. “Do you suppose he could have a baby if he wanted to?”
“Look, Emma!” David cried. “Why don’t you ask him?”
“He’s your friend!” she argued.
David shrugged his shoulders and refused to talk with her any further. He rose and lifted the marionettes into the truck. Quickly the Gonoph ran to his side and helped him with the boxes. “There’s no point in getting sore!” she said.
“Don’t try to lift those boxes, Emma!” David said patiently.
The drab woman stood aside and leaned against a stay rope. She watched David’s muscles ripple along his arms as he hefted the stage into the truck. Then she spoke in a quiet voice. “Have they said anything to you about it?” she asked.
“About what?” David asked, shoving the stage into place.
“Oh, about you and me.”
David could scarcely believe what he had heard. With his back still to the Gonoph he replied, “What do you mean?”
“Oh,” she replied indifferently. “Wild Man’s been teasing about me being in love with you.” David gulped and gave the stage a final push. “Not that I mind a bit of teasing!” she added.
“Emma!” David finally cried, turning to her. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”
“Oh,” she said in embarrassment, pushing on the rope like a schoolgirl. “People like to guess. They’ve been talking about the way I come out to the tent every day.”
It was a warm evening. The sun still hung among the trees that lined the western edge of the field on which the tent stood. On the other side of the stage a group of boys finished lining up the wooden chairs for the evening performance. This was the last night Chautauqua would ever pitch its tents in that town, and there was the lonely quietness of death about the place.
David studied the misshapen Gonoph and smiled. “If they’re talking so much, I don’t think you ought to come here any more,” he said softly.
“I got to come somewhere!” the Gonoph replied.
The answer stopped David for a moment. It was not what he expected. Finally he recovered and said, “Well, then you come here,” he said. “I like to talk with you.”
A slow smile spread over the woman’s big face. Her yellow horse teeth showed between fat lips and she sighed. “I’m glad!” she said. “Because you’re the nicest man on Chautauqua this year. You’re really a very nice man!” She reached across the dead grass and the dust and patted David on the arm. All that night she followed him with her big cow eyes, and onstage she muffed two lines watching him. When the curtain fell the Wild Man laughed at David and said, “I see you got yourself a girl!” David thought of three funny answers but offered none of them.
“Sure looks that way!” he agreed.
They were in a small Pennsylvania town called Jersey Shore when David discovered that the Wild Man was something special. His full name was Wild Man Jensen. He was about twenty-three years old and had played halfback at the University of Illinois. He drove the marionette truck while David and Vito slept on bunks built in the rear. He was in the play, too. He had a small speaking part, a local politician who was badgering Judge Hardy. More important, he ran the telephone when David was onstage, and was property man, as well.
The Wild Man was big, already turning to fat. He had a rough, handsome face and a puppy-like manner. He was usually unkempt, knocking about in a football sweater, but each afternoon about five he would start brushing his hair and polishing his shoes. “Where do you go every day?” David asked him in Jersey Shore.
&nbs
The girl walked up to David and asked, “Are you Mr. Jensen?”
“Hey! Hey!” the Wild Man protested. “I’m Jensen! He just works here!” The girl laughed and held out her hand.
“I’m Lucretia Davis,” she said.
In Clearfield, David discovered how the Wild Man arranged such attractive dinner dates. David was inside the truck that day, making up the bunks when he heard the Wild Man hail a young boy who was straightening chairs.
“Sonny!” Jensen began very quietly. “You live here in Clearfield?”
“Sure!” the youngster replied.
“Who’s the prettiest girl in Clearfield?”
The little boy thought a moment. “I guess it would be Sue Tucker,” he said.
“She really beautiful?” Jensen checked.
“Oh, she’s gorgeous!” the boy replied.
“You know her?”
“Sure I know her! She lives on our block.”
“All right, son! I believe you,” Jensen said quietly. “Now here’s fifteen cents. And in this pocket there’s ten cents more! All you got to do is go find Sue Tucker and tell her exactly what I say. You go up to her and say, ‘Sue! I just been down to Chautauqua. There’s a fellow there acts in the play. He ain’t so good-lookin’ but he played football at Illinois. He asked me where a good restaurant was. He ain’t had a meal at home for the last two months.’ That’s all you say, sonny. Then if Miss Sue Tucker says the right thing, you get the extra dime.”
The little boy ran off to find Sue Tucker. When he was gone David poked his head out of the truck and cried, “Fine business!”
The Wild Man looked up from the box on which he was shining his shoes. “A guy’s got to have his pigeons!” he drawled.
“You mean, you pull that trick in every town?” David asked.
“Son!” the Wild Man replied. “It’s shore a warm day. Let’s don’t pry into trade secrets? OK?” He stretched out on the box and pulled a handkerchief across his face. He was dozing there when the little boy came round the end of the tent.
“Hey! Mister!” the boy called. “Come here a minute!”
Jensen rose, twisted his rugged body, and smoothed down his hair. He went to where the boy was gesticulating. Shyly, from around the canvas, came a dark girl of seventeen, accompanied by a younger sister. She seemed perfect in the afternoon sun, her brown hair and tanned face matching the canvas.
“This here is Sue Tucker,” the little boy said proudly. “Didn’t I tell you she was pretty?”
Sue blushed and David wished that it was he talking with her, leaning relaxed against the guy ropes the way Jensen did. “I …” she began in a half-childish, half-womanly voice. “That is, my mother … we heard you’ve been eating in restaurants …”
Sue fumbled with words, so that her little sister broke in, “Mom says, ‘Why don’t you eat with us?’ ” Sue blushed again. The Wild Man leaned harder upon the rope as if deeply displeased. He scowled at the little boy.
“You shouldn’t of told her about the restaurants!” he chafed. The boy opened his mouth and stared.
“So if you would like to eat with us,” Sue continued. She wore a summer dress and seemed to be striving to fill it as if it were a challenge.
“You go to college?” Jensen asked.
“Next year I’ll be a sophomore,” she said. “At Penn State.”
“Say!” Jensen cried. “That’s a mighty good school!” He unwound himself from the rope and said, “I’ll tell you, Sue. I’ve got to be back here at seven-thirty. Hardly be fair to your mother …”
“We could eat early!” Sue stammered, falling over words in her eagerness to reassure him.
“Then maybe I could make it,” the Wild Man admitted, thoughtfully. He slipped the bewildered boy a dime and took the little sister’s hand. “What’s your name, little girl?” he asked.
They set forth, the three of them, and toward eight Jensen returned. After the show Sue and her mother came back to see the Wild Man. “You were very good!” Sue observed.
“They don’t give me much to say,” Wild Man replied. There was a moment of hesitation and then Jensen, greasy and big, pulled Sue to him and gave her a tremendous kiss. David saw the kiss and watched the manner in which Sue closed her eyes and broke away with paint upon her cheeks. The girl’s mother was embarrassed and grabbed her daughter. Together they picked their way through the tent and Sue turned back to cry, “Write to me!”
Jensen watched them go and then wiped the grease paint from his face. He rubbed the massive growth of hair on his chest. “Beats eatin’ in restaurants!” he observed to no one in particular.
In every town he suborned some boy to find him the prettiest girl. Then one day he had to buy a broom, and David understood him much better. Up to that particular day Jensen had been merely a scatter-brained romantic, meeting young girls as they came shyly to invite him to dinner. He was kind to them, friendly to their little sisters, and most courteous to their mothers who cooked the meals. He kissed them good night and wrote each one at least two fine letters: “We played Farrell, Pennsylvania, tonight and when the tent came down I imagined that you were here again …”
But in Charleroi, where he bought the broom, things were different. The prettiest girl in town was well rouged up, and Jensen reported for the play smelling strongly of whiskey. After the show he said to David and Vito, “I’d like to use the truck for about half an hour.” He drove off with it and later that night David and Vito found pins and perfume all through their blankets.
“Stop the truck!” Vito suddenly called in his deepest bass.
“What’s up?” Jensen cried back through the sliding window.
“What’s this in my bed?” Vito roared.
Jensen turned his head. “It’s a garter belt!” he announced.
“What do I want with a garter belt?” Vito bellowed.
“Throw it out the back!” Jensen ordered.
But when they stopped that night for two-o’clock coffee Jensen asked the restaurant keeper if he’d sell that broom in the corner. “Whadda you need a broom for?” the man inquired.
“System!” Jensen explained. Later he explained things to David and the dwarf. “When I go looking for a girl,” he said, “all I want is a nice girl. I like ’em fine that way. A good meal. A nice home. Maybe a kiss. I just yearn to be with girls, that’s all. But sometimes even nice girls like to do a little explorin’. Now when this broom is hangin’ out the end of the truck I don’t want any interference. Come up, shift gears when it’s time to go, and I’ll wind everything up in ten minutes. That’s a promise.”
So through Ohio and much of Indiana and Illinois the Wild Man blew into one town after another. “Son!” he’d say to some dark-haired boy, “Who’s the prettiest pigeon in town?” And if that girl, when she appeared—and she almost always did—was chafing at the edge of life, eager to try her new-fledged body, Jensen was an admirable companion. The broom would hang out the end of the dark truck, and Vito, when he climbed in front to shift gears, would hear subdued giggles coming from his bed.
But if the girl was afraid, not yet sure of herself, the Wild Man treated her as tenderly as if she were his own sister. He would be all gallantry and tell her, when the last garish light swung back and forth on the last tent pole, “I’ll write to you. Yep. From the very next town.”
After such nights he would ask David to ride up front with him as the dark truck rolled westward to the next distant tent. “Everybody in the world wants to be in love,” he said one night. “If I was a million guys I couldn’t make love or write to all the girls who would like me to. God! I tell you! I see unhappy women like the Gonoph! My heart breaks, Dave! Honest to God, I have so much fun in life I sometimes almost cry
David asked, “Don’t you ever fall in love? Really?”
“Me?” Jensen cried, dropping his hands from the wheel. “I’m in love every day. I get almost breathless waiting to see who’s comin’ round the edge of the tent. I know she’s gonna be beautiful because she thinks she’s comin’ to see an actor! I go day after day through a long string of towns. I’ll never see any of ’em again. Never! But for that short visit I can imagine that I’m really somebody. An actor like Cyril. And I can make any girl think so, too! God! In a job like this all girls are beautiful!”
The rolling truck sped through the dark and silent towns. Canton, Wooster, Mansfield. “Imagine!” Jensen cried. “We could stop in any place along the road. Any town at all. And in the afternoon there’d be some pretty girl who’d want to convince herself that she loved me!” He wrenched the truck back onto its course and pointed ahead to a dull glow in the sky. “What’s the next town?” he asked.
“Massillon,” David said.
“Massillon!” the Wild Man repeated softly, rolling the syllables upon his tongue. “In Massillon there’s a beautiful girl. She’s sleepin’ now, and I’ll never see her. But you’re beautiful, you little pigeon! Go on sleepin’.”
Never before had David heard quite so frank a song of love. It baffled him, and for a long time—until they had passed through Massillon—he rode in silence. Finally he asked, “Don’t you use the broom a lot?”
Jensen laughed and bent over the steering wheel. At last he said, “I’ll tell you, Dave. Just about the right percentage. Every three or four nights. But don’t ever let anybody kid you, fellow. Sleepin’ with a lovely woman! That’s the better half of livin’.”